My Heart, My Mother, Twice
by EggSalad
Summary: Dying was like everything and nothing she had ever experienced.


**Title: **My Heart, My Mother, Twice

**Disclaimer:** The characters depicted within are not mine. I'm making no money from this venture; please don't sue; etc.

"My heart, my mother, twice. My heart of my coming into being," is a quote from the Egyptian Book of the Dead.

**Summary:** A missing scene from The Mummy Returns, this small piece is essentially a story of emotions, of sensations, of Evelyn's last and first breaths.

**AN:** This is, unlike my other stories, Not Funny. I would even go so far as to say that it is Serious - course, that may be because Jon is not the central character. Like my other stories, however, it is short. Very, very short. I'm sure there's a metaphor about life in there somewhere.

* * *

Dying was like everything and nothing she had ever experienced.

Dimly, she was aware of Rick hovering above her, of the steel violating her flesh, of every organ initiating a shut-down that would steal her breath and darken her eyes - but above all these things, despite how she struggled against it, was a sort of dark adrenaline rush; ecstasy seen backwards through a mirror.

Evelyn O'Connell was dying, and it was incredible.

In the space between one faltering heart-beat and the next, she felt the world shift, somehow, into a dizzying myriad of colours, a cobweb of time and connections. And there were all the answers she had ever been denied; all the questions she had ever wondered; a siren call of knowledge that whispered in her ear and numbed the physical sensations of the life she was leaving. She struggled briefly, surfaced and gasped one last breath.

"Take care of Alex for me," she said, and felt for a small moment a supernova of grief at the reality of leaving this loyal, beautiful man; leaving her son; leaving her brother. But then the moment vanished, and all that Evy had been dissolved into the light.

* * *

Heaven was in not leaving. Heaven was in being part of everything she had loved. She lingered for a few minutes around and within Jon and Alex; found a deep joy in being a strand of Jon's hair, the smallest finger on Alex's left hand.

"She's gone to a better place," Jon told Alex, and Evelyn was in the words issuing from Jon's mouth, and she was truth.

She looked for Rick.

_Rick stammering, blushing in the dark, deadly earnest. "I'd die if something happened to you. You're my heart, Evy."_

She was his heart. She pumped blood through his veins, keeping him alive and alive and alive.

* * *

With Uncle Jon busy distracting the murderess, Alex was left to watch over his mother's body, fighting through the grief that threatened to overwhelm him. He had the Book of the Dead. He would bring her back out of the darkness, back to him. He wouldn't allow it to be otherwise.

_Alex obediently following his mother's finger, mouthing the words that match the hieroglyphics: "My heart, my mother, twice. My heart of my coming into being …"_

Evelyn was in the words that Alex said, the incantation of life; each word a verbal key to open the door of death. The world shifted again, and she flew out of the sand, out of the air, out of Rick, out of the last magical word Alex spoke. She had forgotten the answers and the questions, but the siren call was somehow less strong when Alex put his hand in hers and folded her fingers around it.

Evelyn O'Connell was breathing and living, and it was astonishing.

The shadows evaporated, whisked away by the glint of Alex's teeth in the gloom; the strength of his hand clutching hers so tightly that the bones grated with the urgency of his need for his mother. She curled her lips into a smile, testing the muscles while he yanked her upright. Her breath was stolen again, but this time it was much more pleasant - an ecstatic boy hugging his mother and tugging her toward his father.

Living again was like everything and nothing she had ever experienced.

END

* * *

**AN:** Yes, another one, terribly sorry. 

It's been awhile since I've ventured into The Mummy fandom, and I must say that it's nice to be back. Thank you for reading.

My darling beta reader, Anna, is also thanked, but she's having some difficulties with my writing style, particularly the sentence fragments and my 'wanton' use of semi-colons. I _like _semi-colons. I'm keeping them. ;P

And Belphegor, it was _very_ nice to hear from you again. Made my day! I'm looking forward to an update from your story, by the way. ;) Which rhymes, I just noticed.

Cheers, my dears!


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